(Subscription required) The state Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday over whether the San Francisco Giants can compel a security guard’s wage and hour claim into arbitration.

As the California Supreme Court ruled in 1986, “In order to verify accountability, individuals must have access to government files. Such access permits checks against the arbitrary exercise of official power and secrecy in the political process.”

Employers used to be able to write off injuries as a small cost of doing business, but a California Supreme Court decision could raise that cost considerably for employers in the Golden state, and possibly beyond.

(Subscription required) After spending most of his first year on the bench in traffic court, San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Michael Camber is back in his comfort zone overseeing felony trials, but there’s a big part of the job he’s still getting used to.

Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye urged Bandlow to be more specific. “The court is having a problem with the broadness of your argument. It could be argued that the anti-SLAPP motion protects any kind of report, public or private, that mentions keywords or buzzwords that are in the public interest,” she said.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra will not release disciplinary records for his investigators under the state’s new transparency law until the courts rule on whether the statute is retroactive, saying that for now disclosure would invade the officers’ rights.

Passed by California voters, Proposition 64 legalized the possession and use of recreational marijuana by adults. It also decreased penalties for possession with intent to sell, sales, transportation and cultivation of marijuana. Prop. 64 was retroactive, allowing for reductions and dismissals for previously imposed punishments, officials said.

Among the issues that deeply divide the Supreme Court – and there are many – one of the most personal is whether to take their reserved front-row seats for the president's annual State of the Union address.

With a state plan to abolish cash bail hanging in limbo until a 2020 voter referendum, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to increase pre-plea diversion programs and develop and pilot bail reforms.

(Subscription required) The state Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday in a case that could change the balance of power between borrowers and lenders.

(Subscription required) Judge E. Bradley Nelson has worked in the criminal division of Solano County Superior Court for a decade, overseeing a docket that is usually grim.

McClatchy High School, where Becerra gave his rebuttal, boasts a number of prominent alumni including retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy and California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye.

Tani Cantil-Sakauye, has served as the 28th Chief Justice of California since 2010 and is the first Asian-American to lead the California Supreme Court.

With California’s historic law to do away with money bail on hold pending a 2020 voter referendum, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is focusing on its own bail reform efforts.

If SB10 goes into effect, California will the first and only state to eliminate money bail entirely; no other state has eradicated it.

In its recent Dynamex decision, the California Supreme Court ruled that in order to be an independent contractor, a worker must perform “work that is outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business.”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce wants the California Supreme Court to reverse a ruling for a window washer who was injured in a fall.

A "baker's dozen" of structural steel projects have earned recognition in the 2019 Innovative Design in Engineering and Architecture with Structural Steel awards program (IDEAS2), including the Superior Court of California - San Diego.

The state Supreme Court yesterday declared that an action against the city of Carson can proceed after being dismissed as a SLAPP because the plaintiff’s allegations that the city breached an exclusive agency contract for negotiating the construction of an NFL stadium did not arise from protected activity.

The case in question is California Cannabis Coalition v. City of Upland. The case centered on provisions of Proposition 218, passed by state voters in 1996, that set vote standards on local governments, including when a measure could appear before voters.

The mandatory bar focused more closely on admissions and discipline for its more than 250,000 active and inactive licensees. In turn, the voluntary-membership CLA got off to a strong start taking responsibility for many of the bar’s trade association-like functions and launching new initiatives.

(Subscription required) “When you get to close the case of a family that came in in a state of crisis, and get to close it in a much healthier, happier, more equipped place, it’s extremely rewarding,” she said. “I love that part of the job. I am able to see cases that come in from day one with me through the end where you see the differences between the parents and the kids.”

Despite the Catholic Church fighting all the way to the California Supreme Court to prevent the release of those files, we persisted and prevailed. In California alone, this civil litigation and discovery process led to the public identification of hundreds of perpetrators, as well as church hierarchy members who concealed the perpetrators’ crimes from law enforcement and the public.

The Supreme Court reverses the death sentence but affirms the defendant’s convictions in People v. Armstrong for a 1998 robbery, rape, torture, and murder in Long Beach. The court is divided 4-3 about whether a Batson challenge — alleging racial discrimination in the prosecution’s jury selection — requires a full reversal.

In a 2-1 decision with potentially broad impact, the Second District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles said on-call employees are protected by a 1943 California Industrial Welfare Commission wage order, still in effect, that entitles employees to “reporting time pay” as soon as they are required to report for work.

The Supreme Court of California upheld a death penalty sentence for David Westerfield on Monday for the 2002 murder and kidnapping of 7-year-old Sabre Springs resident Danielle van Dam.

Unions want Dynamex to be enshrined as state law; companies do not. So far Dynamex has not resulted in any large-scale reclassification, although it has been cited as precedent in a few legal cases. Uber and Lyft drivers, for instance, remain independent contractors.

(Subscription required) Judge Susan De Witt went from prosecuting terrorists looking to kill Americans abroad to presiding over misdemeanor trials after her appointment to the bench, but that wasn’t the only big change.

In 2015, only nine out of our 58 trial courts provided interpreters in these critical cases; today 51 of our trial courts provide these services. Having a qualified interpreter means we can avoid the heartbreaking scenario of a child translating for her or his parents in family court, or a tenant relying on his landlord to explain what a judge is saying in an eviction proceeding.

CalPERS has not only regressed but could actually be underwater because of a new way of calculating its liabilities.